2.2's Instant Ship and Module Transport - Yay or Nay?

[lecorsobreton]

Although I'm not a hardcore player, I don't think instant transfer is a good idea. With all the talk about the science behind Elite, and how attached to realism it wants to be, I think it's odd to allow us to magically transfer our armada from point A to point B. So my vote goes to "transfer should be on a 1:1 scale". If it takes me 10 minutes, then the transfer should take as long.

I'm very exited about this feature, it will allow me to venture around a lot more.

 

[Moonax IRL]

For those who want a time-wasting delay, would you also want a delay on death? If the technology exists to replicate you and your ship instantly, then it exists for ship transfers. Maybe they should stop describing it as a transfer and give it a name that describes it as some disintegration/reintegration process.

I`ll have the delay on death if you will accept it as well, no problem.

 

[Lobstris]

This transfer system can be rationalised and reasoned very simply if people actually wanted to. xD

Except for that whole frame shift drives are supposedly humanity's fastest mode of travel, yet still have finite ranges and appreciable travel times thing.

 

[Moonax IRL]

People in today's society do it all the time for business. It can be cheaper to send your driver to a distant location by flight to pick up something that must be driven back.

This transfer system can be rationalised and reasoned very simply if people actually wanted to. xD

Do you still believe in the tooth fairy as well.

 

[robbyp]

Its a bad idea which they still have time to reconsider.

 

[mossfoot]

As per my previous comment, I can see why they're doing this, as they don't want to/can't set up huge numbers of timers on the servers, which would update the database at the correct time. It's not scalable. You can't have the timers in the client as (a) they're not running all the time, and (b) it could be hacked.

However, what I wouldn't mind is "next day delivery" on all modules and ships. A player would basically put a request in for transfer and on the next tick of the galaxy status all the ships and modules are moved. This is as scalable as you can get, but it would still be a higher overhead for Frontier's servers and would require back-end development, whereas the proposed solution is purely client based (with an API call to the database engine).

So, basically, anything other than instant or galaxy tick based movement is out of the window.

Would people consider "Next Day Delivery" a good compromise?

Id be all for it! But I can already hear the cries of butthurt over it...

 

[CMDR Pugwash]

Again, NAW!

Have ship transportation if you must but it must be like moving house, loads of preparation, expensive and slow. To be used when moving your base of operations. Anything else turns this timeless classic into just another kiddies console game. "Lego Elite" - no thanks.

 

[Cmdr-Wotherspoon]

If it is instant ship transfer, then you could fly a lightweight ship out to Jaques and instantly summon a fully equipped one when you arrive. For that matter, you could have all your combat ships fitted out with 1E frames off drives, as you can travel in a Hauler and summon them instantly to the combat system when you get there, presumably regardless of their ability to actually jump. This will leave combat ships with spare power for larger weapons and stronger shields. Not game breaking, but immersion-breaking, and unintentionally rebalancing combat-to-trade ship capabilities (as trade ships will still need to be able to jump).

I'm not in favour of grind, but neither am I in favour of dumbing-down the game so you don't need to plan ahead.

 

[Knarfis]

Why not put ship transfer into the hands of their follow players??

What I mean by this is put a contract up to send your ship to a location. There will be a price tag associated with this contact and the player who is doing this shipment does not know that it is necessarily a ship, or who's the one shipping it. The Devs could decide on whether or not modules would be ships separately or on the ship.

I suggest this only to give the players who like doing shipping missions, just one more thing to do and a wonderful way to make money. The questions that would come up is, at this moment is there is ship big enough to haul other ships inside of it? How many ships could be hauls?? What about the bigger ships like the Cutter or Anaconda? What is to stop players from just taking things into their own hands and shipping their own ships?? And then of course, you have the PVP aspect of things. Currently, ED does not have much of a deterrent, consequence or policing to those that want to wreck others. I am not against PVP, but currently it is far to easy to gank another ship and get away with it. Then again, people do have the "Solo" play style option which has its own set of arguments and issues on to itself.

I am not suggesting getting rid of the "NPC" ship transfer option. That actually should stay in place but with a hefty price tag that will give players pause as to how badly they want the ship moved and how fast, while still allowing an option or alternative that brings other players into the game and the everyday doings of the game.

I am one for the sand box approach. Coming from EVE Online, it was one of many aspects that I liked about the game. The empowerment of the players to shape the world around them under every aspect.

 

[Moonax IRL]

It should replicate a player in time taken, somewhere in the region of 1-2 mins per jump x by no. of jumps required. Its simple but FD have made a mess by mentioning the word instant, completely brainless concept.

 

[Wildeheart]

People are soooo insistent on ship transfer being a moved for me/magiced/printed thing that they refuse too use a little reason and logic to rationalise processes we do already in our own daily shipping/business world.

Gameplay and Immersion can be satisfied here. Goodnght commanders! o7

 

[CMDR Pugwash]

Why not put ship transfer into the hands of their follow players??

What I mean by this is put a contract up to send your ship to a location.

Now that is a good idea. They could use a passenger mission to get back too.

 

[Moonax IRL]

Why not put ship transfer into the hands of their follow players??.

That would be a very good idea and lead to emergent gameplay but the system is probably not up to it atm.

 

[[DOOK] Droogie]

This mechanic already exists in the game when you get destroyed. Your ship is instantly rebuilt, modifications and all to exact specs, instantly.

Just have it cost the rebuy value. Your other ship is destroyed, the new one is built at the new station.

 

[CMDR Robyn Highart]

For those who want a time-wasting delay, would you also want a delay on death? If the technology exists to replicate you and your ship instantly, then it exists for ship transfers. Maybe they should stop describing it as a transfer and give it a name that describes it as some disintegration/reintegration process.

I would accept that. Moreover, nothing is replicated. You're recovered. Your insurer outfits a new ship for you.

 

[Cmdr-Wotherspoon]

Actually, I've just realised that this will put Felicity Farseer and Elvira Martuuk out of business. All you'll need is one ship with a decent FSD, and the range of the rest of your fleet won't matter.

 

[Angus]

Transport - Yay
Instantaneous - Booh

Exactly my thoughts.

 

[Quiquag]

How about a slight alternative, with in game lore possible?

Lets say that there is a way to jump any ship ~500ly. However, any biological material is vaporized in the process. Thus, instantanious transfer anywhere in the bubble.
NOW, rather than make it warp right into your available stored ships, when you do this it's a 45-60 delay, and then your ship warps into space outside the station, and docks. After it docks, it becomes available to you in the shipyard.

Keep the cost high, and make it have a range of ~500ly, so no getting an armada to Jaques. Just having it appear and dock keeps some level of immersion. And as it isn't piloted by a human, it doesn't appear any different than an AI ship, so no griefers taking it out.

 

[Ziljan]

This mechanic already exists in the game when you get destroyed. Your ship is instantly rebuilt, modifications and all to exact specs, instantly.

Just have it cost the rebuy value. Your other ship is destroyed, the new one is built at the new station.

You're comparing dying instantly to voiding the jump range on all ships and incentivizing Taxicondas everywhere? Seriously? These are not remotely the same thing.

When you're in your escape pod, you're unconscious and don't experience the passage of time. Also there is no benefit to dying! Whereas Taxicondas and suicideys can be abused in a number of gamebreaking ways.

 

[Moonax IRL]

Why break with the existing mechanics and cause unnecessary complications, mimic player behaviour and time periods, simple.